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in February, this site was in New York for the American Anime Awards,
but most of the West Coast winners were not. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn,
nominated for her performances as Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the
Shell, won the best female actor award while she was spending a
Saturday night at home with her husband. Earlier, McGlynn had arranged
for California actor Yuri Lowenthal to accept the trophy if she won,
but Lowenthal didn't make the call - someone else beat him. "I got this
phone call from (New York actor) Mike Sinterniklaas and he said `You
won! You won!' It happened just as Yuri bounded up the stage. It was so
thrilling, and I said I won. Hopefully, next year we can go. It was a
huge honor, and I'd like to go there and thank the fans." The award
statue now resides in McGlynn's living room, and she's compared the
mecha sculpture to a friend's Emmy. The award capped a career in the
voiceover world that took off when McGlynn decided to stop pursuing
on-camera roles and follow the path of dubs and singing for video games
and other projects. Ironically, an injury she suffered during
production of an episode of Zena, Warrior Princess in New Zealand led
her to try voiceover. The breaks started with the open Diva role in
El-Hazard, led to more roles with the Zro Limit studio, and then
advanced to the job of directing the Cowboy Bebop dub. |
 Bebop
cemented McGlynn's reputation as a dub director, and more shows
followed. The most popular of those series among anime fans likely is
Naruto, where she was thrown into the voice director's chair beginning
with the 18th episode. "I had no idea of this world and how big it was.
I had a couple of days and I started directing," after performing some
Internet homework to learn the specifics of the series and its
characters. "He's got such a sense of determination and fortitude," she
said of lead character Naruto. "Nothing's going to stop him from doing
anything. It gives him more reason to believe in what he's doing." The
deepest series in cast and writing that McGlynn has directed could have
been Wolf's Rain. "I love comedies. I think they're great, but Wolf's
Rain was so great and so moving and it had this dream cast." Her
deepest acting role had to be Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell,
with its endless questions of the nature of humanity in a cybernetic
age. "What I like about her is that she's unyielding. She goes after
what she wants, even if it's to her own demise." But the series that is
likely to get away from McGlynn, the series for which she'd love to be
part of the dub but probably won't, is Death Note. She's a fan of the
manga and enjoys its exploration of morality, but the series hasn't
been dubbed yet, and speculation is that a company outside of her usual
orbit will get the job if Death Note is dubbed. |
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